AN experimental therapy has shown a high response rate and helps shrink tumours in lung cancer patients with a specific form of genetic alteration, according to results of a clinical trial.
The Pfizer Inc drug crizotinib shrank tumours in lung cancer patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a specific gene alteration of an enzyme implicated in cancer cell growth, known as anaplastic lymphoma kinase, or ALK.
According to Pfizer, around 10,000 people in the United States are affected by a lung cancer with this particular genetic mutation.
About 90 per cent of the 82 participants in the small-scale phase one clinical trial responded positively, and more than half – 57 per cent – saw their tumours shrink after eight weeks, said lead author Yung-Jue Bang, a physician at Seoul National University College of Medicine.
Researchers had only expected about 10 per cent of the patients, many of whom had already received three or more prior treatments, to respond to the treatment.
Most of the NSCLC patients were former smokers or had never smoked. The median duration of treatment was approximately six months.
Crizotinib, which is taken orally, works by inhibiting the ALK enzyme. About one in 20 lung cancer patients in the US are estimated to be diagnosed with ALK-positive NSCLC each year.
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